In the hurly-burly of modern existence, the wildlife in our cities is easily
overlooked. It often is treated as something negative because it is untidy.
Indeed urban wildlife sites can attract litter and rubbish, and be places for
antisocial behavior. As a result it is constantly under threat, notably fromthose who seek for tidiness. Now, for seemingly good planning reasons,
there is a concern to concentrate new development on old “brown field”
areas. This is good for the regeneration of urban areas, but it eliminates
important examples of what nature can do given the opportunity.
No policies are ever complete, however, and tidiness is not universal.
There is also a continuous process of obsolescence and renewal in cities
from which there is always a certain amount of unoccupied wasteland, in
which all these steps in ecosystem development are available for study.
Each small patch has within itself the characteristics of a human urban
society. And the different patches with different histories and backgrounds
can reveal the different ecosystem outcomes that can arise in comparative
situations. From this a fascinating picture of the processes of action and
interaction that are such an important part of natural communities, and that
lead to biodiversity, can be built up. There has not been space to examine
in detail how much these processes provide a provoking model for human
urban societies, but perhaps the essentials have been illuminated. It would
be interesting to examine elements that we ought more to incorporate in
urban societies, and those we would prefer to reject.